Performance/workshop

“RubsCULpTURE” Flørli Lysefjord May 2016 – performance/workshop

StatementThe workshop as the artwork: Art institutions have until quite lately focused on the artwork as object.
Agnes Btffn creates the workshop to be the artwork itself. It cannot be purchased, and forgotten on a wall, or speculated upon. Each person owns the artwork a little through the experience of participating in it’s creation. The artwork clings to the participant’s body, memory and history.

Fjaltring, a village on the west coast of Denmark (Vest Jylland)
BALANCE ACT was created together with some inhabitants of the region around Fjaltring, for the opening of the exhibition,
THE GAP in between rural & urban – an artistic dialogue organized by the Fjaltring gallery and ET4U.

The walk BALANCE was connected to other parts of the world trough the web as other artists have agreed to do a PERFORMANCE ART WALK that same day.

More about the project Global Performance Art Walks and about the artists on Face Book

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The performances 18.09 2013

The workshop going on in Fjaltring gallery:

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Manual for the workshop in the Fjaltring Gallery

The aim for the workshop is to walk together in the evening sunlight (as the horizon rises before the sun) balancing a self made sculpture on one’s head.

A sculpture is traditionally presented on a base. In this performance I invite the participants to be the base of the sculpture they have created. (*1)

Before we can walk together on a bridge, along a lake, the sea or wherever we choose as the horizon rises before the sun (the sunset), we should prepare to:
– Train to walk with a object of a certain size balancing on our head.
– Create a sculpture with a material of our choice. Choose only one material that will give us the possibility to shape it into a larger object. No glue or tool should be used in the process. Some materials can be plaited, knotted or whatever the material inspires us to do. (*2)

*1 “The romanian sculptor Constantin Brâncuşi sat focus on the pedestals of his sculptures and carved them. He invited the public to his studio to point out the impact he meant the sculptures, their base and the space around them had on each other.”

*2 “The concept of “together” that grew in the Btffn project is also present in her choice of materials for her new project.Here, the objects she makes to carry hold themselves together without glue or similar means. She creates, for example, more or less spherical shapes by knotting together sheets of newspaper or by plaiting plastic bags.This technical choice expresses Btffn’s intention to manifest a harmonious solidarity of the project’s component materials, and to create an essential unity appropriate for each individual object and its component materials. Both simple and complex objects are logically organized in ways that seem to animate them with a unifying force. By constructing the object in this way, the artists seems to be using symbols to concretely manifest the gravitational force that binds and organizes the celestial bodies of the Universe.” Sylvain Berland

Schedule for the workshop:

1rst meeting with participants: 1 or 2 hours to introduce the work and give some ideas so the participants can prepare at home, like finding materials to be worked upon, and start to train walking with an object on the head.

2nd and 3rd meeting:– Work on the sculptures. The participants take their chosen material to the workshop and we can discuss and look at it and start making a larger object.
– Do some walking around with some found objects on our head.
– Plan how we want to work further before the performance on the opening day.

The participants, anyone at any age who wants to participate, are given an introduction about performance art. With the palestinian’s performance ” ROCK THE ROCK” as inspiration, the participants are invited to create a walk together, an esthetical live act: To walk together while carying an object. Each performance will be given a name.

The performances created by the participants will be linked to the webbased art project “GLOBAL PERFORMANCE ART WALK», created by the artist and curator Ignacio Perez Perez from Caracas Venezuela.

AN OBSERVATION GAME :
… see the horizon, the trees, the roofs rise in the evening and set in the morning before the sun…
Maybe, with some training, you will
– see the earth’s rotation…
– express what you experience then…
– describe what you realy see…
Maybe, your describtion vill bee so good that it will one day replace ………….
……..the expressions “sunset, sunrise” !
… maybe…